FIGHT! Magazine - Archives » MMA Lifehttp://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine
Just another WordPress siteThu, 07 Nov 2013 21:36:48 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.1You Always Remember Your…First Timehttp://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/you-always-remember-yourfirst-time-435/
http://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/you-always-remember-yourfirst-time-435/#commentsThu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000Ryan Locohttp://www.fightmagazine.comThere are but a few major happenings in a man’s life. Falling in love. Getting married. The birth of your fi rst child. Your fi rst divorce. But the problem with those events is that they all normally happen before you turn 18. At least they did for me. Please tell me I’m not the [...]

]]>There are but a few major happenings in a man’s life. Falling in love. Getting married. The birth of your fi rst child. Your fi rst divorce. But the problem with those events is that they all normally happen before you turn 18. At least they did for me. Please tell me I’m not the only one. However, there is one major life-changing moment that you can still get amped for.

YOUR FIRST UFC EVENT

I remember my fi rst time. I was young. Inexperienced. There was sweat. Some blood. Some disappointment. And it was over way too fast. Damn … now that I think about it, that sort of sounds like the fi rst time I … never mind. In all honesty, it was a big deal. The lights, the music, the absolute insane atmosphere of the crowd. It is unparalleled by any other sporting event that I have ever been to (Editor’s note: The only other sporting event Mr. Loco has been to was the 1987 Scrabble World Championships). Luckily, with the UFC traveling to all sections of the country, and now the world, every fan reading this has the chance to catch a UFC live. No longer do you have to plan a trip to Vegas. Instead, you can be planning for Texas, or Ohio, or even the UK. But be prepared. The last thing you want is to look like a rookie going in there. They’ll sense it a mile away and eat you alive. Like your fi rst time at a poker table in Vegas. So I’ve compiled a list of some things to be prepared for. Trust me; I’m a veteran. I Wikipedia’d it, and I’ve been to 186 UFCs. Honest.

BEING THAT GUY

We all know the saying: Don’t be “THAT” guy. You can’t go to a concert and wear the T-shirt of the band you’re seeing. That’s a huge NO-NO. You have to wear a T-shirt of a band that is incredibly obscure, or one that is in the same genre. However, much like ’N Sync concerts or NASCAR races, it is not frowned upon at UFC events to wear the T-shirt of the person fi ghting that evening. Heck, it isn’t even bad form to wear the offi cial T-shirt for the event that night. How did this come to be? I have no idea. But look a few rows down, and you’ll see GSP, BJ Penn, and Randy Couture all sitting in front of you. Only thing is, they’ll be on the backs of three fans from Norfolk, Virginia. So don’t think you’re going to look weird wearing your ShomanArt portrait tee of Wanderlei. There’s already someone there with a shaved head and a Sharpie tattoo on the back of it. And he’s probably drunk.

The guy behind you

There’s always a person behind you. Even if your back is against the wall in the very last row, somehow, some way, there will be someone behind you. I was originally going to call this “The Lady behind you” due to numerous bad experiences at events with females behind me, but I don’t need more hate mail. I get enough from my family as it is. It never fails. Every event I go to, there’s someone in my ear, yelling as if the fi ghters can hear them. Forget their corner; Leslie from Nashville has the winning advice. ”BJ!!!!!!! COME ON, BJ!!!! CHOKE HIM! IN THE FACE! BeeeeeeeeeeeJaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!” Don’t get me wrong. Cheering is awesome. I love a loud arena … but doing that for 15 minutes straight? Yelling like that when BJ isn’t even on the card? That’s a little much, don’t you think? Unfortunately, there’s really nothing you can do about it that wouldn’t involve giant men in yellow jackets coming to “have a talk” with you outside … in the parking lot … where there are no security cameras. Again, not like I would know; I just heard some things. I know some people who know some people. How do you combat this? Numb your ears with alcohol. Problem solved.

YOU WON’T EVEN WATCH THE ACTION IN THE CAGE

Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve been to 247 UFCs. Honest. Seventy-fi ve percent of the time, you’re going to be looking at the big screens. I love a good ground battle. But the minute the fi ght goes down, everyone’s heads go up. The UFC has roughly 19 cameramen standing around the cage, which really hinders your view. All you’re going to see is a guy’s back and the sponsor across his rear. Don’t be alarmed when you see everyone angle their head and turn quickly; there isn’t a fi ght in the stands. Vinnie Magalhaes just pulled guard. And now he’s fl exing his abs. WTF?

The baba o’reilly highlight clip

If you’re an Internet nerd, much like me, chances are you’ve heard of this clip. It’s played before the UFC goes live for the PPV audience. It isn’t on YouTube. Trust me, I’ve searched. I’ve already found Titanic 2 on YouTube. No dice on this one. Get there on time, that’s all I’m saying. Thanks to CSI and the UFC, The Who have come back in a big way. I bet Keith Moon is really psyched … oh wait (Google him, kids … damn, I feel old). And even on the off chance that by the time this goes to print it IS on YouTube, it still isn’t the same as seeing it live. I’ve seen it 312 times at various UFCs, and it never disappoints. Honest. It’s the same feeling I get the fi rst time a girl takes her top off (In a movie, not in person. *sobs*).

BRUCE BUFFER’S WHIPLASH TURN

Bruce Buffer is an icon to me, but not just because of his introductions. Take nothing away from it; he’s awesome at what he does. Instead, he’s an icon because at every event I go to, there are hot chicks following him like he has diamonds in his pocket, a fresh Will and Testament in his hand, and a heart problem. However, I can take NOTHING away from his turn. Watch as he introduces the fi ghters. Sometimes it isn’t 100% visible on television. You’d swear that he was wearing those Heely shoes with wheels on them. He spins like he has a power drill in his pants (Take that however you want to take it, sickos … that’s probably why the chicks love him. *rimshot*). We marvel at it, and can’t believe he hasn’t ended up in a hospital bed yet because of it. I now do this same turn every morning in the shower, when grabbing the shampoo. I have broken 14 bones.

So there you have it … my little guide to your fi rst live UFC event. I sort of forgot to mention the $9 beers, the cramped seats, the fact that it will take you 30 minutes to get out of the arena, or the long bathroom lines. But I promise you, you won’t remember any of those things. The only reason why I remember them is because I’ve been to 452 of these things. Honest.

]]>http://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/you-always-remember-yourfirst-time-435/feed/0Who Killed Kata?http://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/who-killed-kata-431/
http://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/who-killed-kata-431/#commentsThu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000Jason "Mayhem" Millerhttp://www.fightmagazine.comWelcome to the 1930s black and white detective story in my mind: I’m sitting in my offi ce on a dark New York night. The camera pans across the outside of my dreary building, then up to my dimly lit window, as you hear a subway train scream past. Cut to the window, “Mayhem Miller [...]

]]>Welcome to the 1930s black and white detective story in my mind: I’m sitting in my offi ce on a dark New York night. The camera pans across the outside of my dreary building, then up to my dimly lit window, as you hear a subway train scream past. Cut to the window, “Mayhem Miller – Private Investigator.”

I lay my head on my desk, pull a puff from my cigarette and lay my brimmed hat beside me. I stare deep into an empty bottle of whiskey. The name’s Miller. I’m a gumshoe. A private Eye, a dick. Call me what you will, I call it a living. A meager one at that, see. The Great Depression has hit like a ton of bricks, and all that I got to comfort me is this here bottle of whiskey and this pack of Jack Johnsons. At least nothing like this will ever happen again. Not with the New Deal and all that jazz. At least real estate is a sure thing.

I’ll start at the beginning. Ev always said, “Start at the beginning, and when you get to the middle, the end won’t come as too much of a shock.” I never understood what he meant. He was a good man. He was a bit mad, but he was a good guy. Got me to where I am today. I was thinking back to happier times when the bells of the phone sprang up and kicked me in the junk somethin’ fi erce. When I found the receiver, I got an earful of sultry sounds from a woman on the other end. Voice sweeter than Ella Fitzgerald, but shaken up like a Martini at a Big Band spot, or one of those jazz clubs down in Harlem where they smoke the reefer. She says she’s headed right down. I try to knock some of the whiskey off my whiskers and clear my haze before she shows up. In no time, a knock at my door, and I see the curvy silhouette through the frosted glass. “Come in,” I choke out, and in walks quite a dame. I’m talkin’ quite a dish—could make her my girl Friday, knowwhadeyemean? Not just some Apple Annie trying to scrape by. A broad with style, with class. She takes off her hat, with its giant brim and veil, and show’s her face. Puffy from crying, a dark-haired dame, looks Spanish with a touch of something else, like her father was a sailor.

“Arianny Celeste” She says. One of the pretty ladies that holds the card and struts her stuff for the UFC fi ghts or what have you. A burlesque girl, but with more glamour, more moxy. Fine job, sounds to me, but comes with a boatload of trouble. Her friend. Murdered. Cold Blood. Broad daylight, for everyone to see. Just one name, “Kata.” A Japanese fellow. The name struck a chord with me. Then I realize she meant “a sequence of prearranged movements and techniques.” OK, I pulled that outta the Webster’s on my shelf, but I’m a real P.I. and I get the job done anyway. I can, see. Don’t worry, Ms. Celeste. I’ll fi nd the dirty rat that killed your pal. Just make the check to “Jason Miller,” and I’m off into the night.

I’m not on the beat fi fteen minutes when I get a big lead, something that could crack this case like an egg over at Mel’s Diner. The Japs! They could’ve had it out with ol’ Kata because of its outdated place in the world of martial arts, fast being replaced by shadowboxing and real cardiovascular conditioning. I put my ear to the street and hit my source, Uncle Chonan over in Chinatown. We talk shop about the big boys of the Orient: Boss Sengoku and the King of Japan, Dream. These swordwielding samurais could’ve dropped Kata like a bad habit, any day of the ol’ week, if ya ask me. They have a fl air for the fl ashy giant entrances with a walkout ramp, pyrotechnics, and a dead-cold heart for anyone that gets in their way. This thought is interrupted by the tiny TV in the corner of his shop, Bruce Buffer shouting out about “THE MILLIONS WATCHING AROUND THE WORRRLD!” Uncle Chonan won’t talk, not because he doesn’t know, but because he doesn’t want to get involved. He rubs the nub where his pinky used to be, and I understand why. After I slide a bag of opium across the counter that he promptly puts under his cap, he directs me to a massage parlor on 67th. “Talk to Mitsuko,” he says before hustling me out of his shop.

I hit the streets again, the darkness hanging like a cloud all around me. Steam from a pothole rises into the air as I cross the street to a dimly lit storefront with blacked-out windows and a small sign claiming “massage” in poorly scribed red paint. Once I open the door, I know that the sign is a baldfaced lie. Two beautiful China dolls, almost twins, in traditional red dresses with all the stitching. They mesmerize me so much that I don’t realize I’m fl anked by Chinamen in black pajamas. They grab me up quick and yell to each other in Chinese and pat me down.

“Hey buster, what’s the big idea?” I say. I’m not sure if they understand. I’m not holding my piece, it’s Wednesday, so they let me approach the desk her front desk, leaving me alone in the hallway. I open the door and, inside, in the candlelight, is a lady of the Orient to die for. Dressed in a traditional kimono and looking like her eyes could pierce right through me. I break the silence with a question, “Mitsuko?”

“Yes” she says, now standing and taking off my jacket. With the heat bubbling under my collar, I wish I would’ve packed my fl ask. “Hey, lady!” She starts to tug at my suspenders. She’s all business, the type of dame that eats Joes like me for breakfast. “Uncle Lin sent me. I need to know who killed Kata.”

This puts the tiger at bay, long enough for me to put my hat back on and wipe They have always hated each other. Go to where the fi ghts have no entrance theatrics and you will fi nd your killer of Kata.”

She’s having a second go at my suspenders when it dawns on me: UFC president Dana White! Japanese dames always talk in riddles, something I learned in the Army.

This isn’t gonna make my job any easier. The UFC is the biggest fi ght biz in the world, and no one battles them and lives to tell about it. Especially not a broken-down ol’ gumshoe with a drinking problem and a Tokyo Rose attacking his trousers. If I’m going to do something, I gotta make it quick. I push Mitsuko down on her bed, and explain “Sorry, toots, I got big fi sh to fry, the biggest.” As her face gets sad the way that someone who’s been rejected for the fi rst time would look, I collect my things and rush out the door. She’s sitting on the bed, looking at me longingly. No time for that. The fi ghts are starting, and I’ve got to get across the bridge.

As I rush out the door of the massage parlor, Mama-san exclaims, “Oooh… you vely quick!” With two goons ready for battle, she proceeds to shake me down for two big ones. I tried to explain that all I did was talk, but suddenly Mama-san doesn’t speak English so well.

I hit the deck in Newark and slip a couple bucks to Johnny Nickles for riding me into godforsaken Jersey. Why anyone would come to this stink hole is beyond me. I fi ght the paper mill stench long enough to pass by a jazz club where a nice fella sells me a ticket for another whopping two mahoneys! I hope the fl apper girl that holds the ring cards gets paid in cash. This case is getting expensive. I’m barely up to the gate when I hear the dingbat in the suit, “IN THIS CORNER…” in his louder-thanlife voice.

I walk into the arena, give the security the slip, and make my way to the fl oor, right by the cage, eventually squeezing within a stone’s throw of the puppet master of this whole shindig: Dana White. This is gonna be tough. Word ‘round town is he used to box, and the twin goons on either side of him scanning the crowd aren’t his hospitality directors. I gotta use my head for something more than a punching bag. It hits me. I tear my library card from my wallet, jam it in the band of my hat, take out my pen and pad, and give goon number one a fi rm “KEVIN IOLE, Yahoo Sports, need a couple of words with Dana before the main event.” “Um, uh..”

Our thoughtful conversation is interrupted by “HE IS A MIXED MARTIAL ARTIST WITH A RECORD OF…” over the PA system. Works in my favor. He buys it enough for me to walk right by, right to the man himself, who shoots me a look. I shoot one right back and get right down to brass tacks. “What do you know about the death of Kata, Mr. White?”

A moment passes. A brief one. “What the fuck do you mean the fucking death of fucking Kata? I’m running a fucking business here. You think I fucking have fucking time to fucking keep track of every fucking goon who dies?”

Man’s got a way with words; I’ll give him that. I spin a 180 and get grabbed by an usher who sends me to where my tickets are, in the nosebleeds. But on the way, I get grabbed by a muscular older man wearing karate pants, a mullet hair-do, and wild eyes. All screwy, if you ask me.

“I know what you are thinking! They thought I did it! It wasn’t me, it’s not Dana!” That’s when it hits me: This is Keith Hackney, the infamous Karate fi ghter from UFC #1. The tank top gave it away.

“I know who killed Kata. He is here!” he continues, his eyes darting wildly. And suddenly, “SQUACK!” Blood shooting profusely from his neck, Hackney goes down like a fl apper girl hit with a blackjack. I hit the deck too, as do some bystanders, though most don’t even notice because the main event is about to begin. On the fl oor, I look over at Hackney, and I see not a bullet hole, but a fresh wound in the shape of a bow tie, clean through to the other side of his mullet.

Hackney was one of my favorites, and I can’t believe they did this to him. I sprint back down the stairs, the ushers trying to stop me, but then BOOM! A knockout upset in the main event, and the crowd goes WILD, enough distraction for me to jump over the railing and into the fi ghters’ entrance, just as the befuddled loser is stumbling with his corner men toward the back. I jump in with them lickety-split and get to the back as I hear “…AND THE NEWWWW CHAMPION!!” I duck into a dressing room and sit down to collect my thoughts.

Who would do such a thing as killing off the last remnants of a dying art form? Who would have anything against it? And who would have so many tuxedos in his dressing room? Just then, I hear the doorknob jiggle, and I jump into the closet with all the tuxes, leaving the door open a crack. The booming voice of Bruce Buffer fi lls the small space. “Now entering his dressing room, Bruuuce Bufffffer!!”

Does this guy ever shut up? He takes off his nice jacket and begins to take a deep horse stance in the mirror. Then he starts. Up block, up block, reverse punch, ridge hand, turn, up block. Jesus Jumpin’ Johosephats! Kata lives on, with traditional martial artist Bruce Buffer. What the hell? He’s mid-turn when I realize, no bow tie. He took off his jacket but didn’t remove any bow tie. And he wasn’t wearing one.

I jump out of the closet with the six-shooter that Nickles gave me. It IS Thursday now. And Buffer looks at me in shock. “So it was you, the whole time?! Betrayed your only true friend? Killed Keith Hackney? You dirty rat!”

Just as I say this, Buffer grabs the gun and steps at an angle, fl ipping my ass over a teakettle. He’s performing a PERFECT disarm, with me on the ground and him now holding my gun. “So you think you’re so smart? You think you’re the best detective IN THE WORLD!!! Don’t you?”

I have to admit, that sounded pretty good. Just then, the door opens and it’s Arianny, holding enough luggage to go on safari. “Baby, great job tonight! Your voice…” She stops short when she realizes the jig is up, then pulls a Tommy gun out of her suitcase.

“Why couldn’t you leave well enough alone? Go ahead and sink Dana and the rest of the UFC for killing off Kata,” the brazen babe barked, “but just leave us be. It was only a matter of time before everyone knew that martial arts had evolved, and he would’ve died anyway. We just put him out of his misery! But you had to go snooping around, and now you are going to die!”

The ring-card broad swung the cannon my way, and I thought for sure I was on the 11:15 to the graveyard, when a shadowy fi gure does a front fl ip over the backstabbing cage walker, grabbing the gun clean from her hands, “YA!” It kicks the gun from Buffer’s hand, “HIYA!” It reverse kicks Arianny in the chin, “KIYA!” Then smacks Buffer with the butt of the gun,”KAEeeeeeeeeeeee!!” and knocks them both out in a perfectly executed Kata!

“They paid me to tell you to go after Dana, but I could not betray you,” Mitsuko says, pulling her ninja mask off. “I could not betray the memory of Kata like that. I spent far too many years as a student of Kata to do that.” Tears now rolled down her porcelain-white cheeks.

I pull myself from the fl oor and grip her tight. “Don’t cry, Sugar.” I now comfort my savior, and, as the paddy wagon pulls up to take the two to the big house, we walk arm and arm down a back alley. The streetlight at the end of the alley casts a long shadow, drawing a sharp, elongated silhouette of my hat, and a cool breeze blows at the ends of my trench coat.

“In this crazy twisted world, all we got is what we got.” Ev said that to me, too. Mad man, but a great man. It’s a shame that sometimes we have let go of old friends. Maybe the broad was right. Kata was bound for the morgue, and all the common fan did was close the curtain early. Hell, who am I to make that call? Who is anybody to make any call, for that matter? I just hope the UFC paid the girl before she headed up the river. I need a stiff drink, and I need that check to clear.

]]>http://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/who-killed-kata-431/feed/0Heist!http://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/heist-440/
http://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/heist-440/#commentsThu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000Ted Czechhttp://www.fightmagazine.comThe crowd at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, cheered and clapped as “Lightning” Lee Murray strode to the podium. The British striker had submitted Jorge Rivera in the fi rst round at UFC 46: Supernatural, held in January 2004. “I’ve waited all my life for this,” Murray said. “Since I started [...]

]]>The crowd at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, cheered and clapped as “Lightning” Lee Murray strode to the podium. The British striker had submitted Jorge Rivera in the fi rst round at UFC 46: Supernatural, held in January 2004. “I’ve waited all my life for this,” Murray said. “Since I started training fi ve years ago, this has been my goal, to get here. The next goal is the belt. And whoever gets in my way … is gonna get knocked out.” He raised his right fi st. “Cold. Cold. Hard,” he said, shaking his head. The crowd laughed. Here was someone who wanted to claw his way to the top, and please a crowd too. But that bout on January 31, 2004, was Murray’s only fi ght in the UFC. He was denied a work visa by the US State Department after English prosecutors fi led felony road rage charges against Murray for nearly beating to death a motorist who sideswiped his car. A little less than two years later, police named Murray as one of the masterminds in the largest cash robbery in British history. The manhunt for Murray sent shockwaves through the MMA community.

The Streets

Murray grew up in a London project and joined a gang as a boy. “He was a feared guy,” fellow gang member and British fi ghter Mark Epstein said. “I mean, there was plenty of gunplay, you know, drugs and stuff.” Murray began fi ghting professionally in 1999 and, four years later, he fought Brazilian legend José “Pelé” Landi-Jons. At their weigh-in, Murray grew enraged after Landi-Jons continued to stare at him when they were asked to face forward. “Bang! We’re done!” Murray yelled, punching his face, as the fi ghters were pulled apart. “Going down!” Murray’s prediction proved true when he knocked out Landi-Jons in the second round. Murray’s star was on the rise. But an incident outside the cage may have been what vaulted Murray into the biggest MMA promotion in the world.

The Brawl At The Brawl

Former UFC welterweight champion Pat Miletich, who trained Murray, said he was at an after-party for UFC 38: Brawl at the Hall, at which Murray was also present. “He was actually a real nice kid, real polite, well-spoken, never gave any signs of having been in trouble before … just a real nice kid that worked hard and trained hard,” Miletich recalls. A number of fi ghters left the after-party together, including Murray, Miletich, Tony Fryklund, and Tito Ortiz, who was the UFC light-heavyweight champion at the time. “One of Tito’s friends jumped on my back … had his arm around my neck like he was choking me,” Miletich said. Fryklund pulled the guy off Miletich and put him in a choke-hold. Miletich was able to get Fryklund to let go, but Ortiz’s friend yelled at Fryklund. “One of Murray’s friends, Paul, thought we were actually in a fi ght and punched Tito’s friend, and that started the whole fi ght in the alley,” Miletich said. Ortiz and Murray squared off, with Ortiz throwing a punch and missing, Miletich said. “Lee came back with like a fi vepunch combo, and landed every punch crisply and dropped Tito, and kicked Tito twice in the head.” Miletich added that he pushed Murray away from Ortiz, telling him to “get out of there.” This brawl with Ortiz most likely got Murray noticed by UFC offi – cials, Miletich said. “I’m guessing that beating up Tito in the alley in London was a good thing to build a rivalry and to have an eventual fi ght between the two … sell a lot of pay-per-views,” Miletich said. However, the bout never happened. Murray fought next on September 2004 at Cage Rage, facing Anderson Silva and losing to him by unanimous decision. About a year later, Murray was stabbed in a donnybrook outside The Funky Buddha, a trendy London nightclub. Murray suffered a punctured lung and severed artery, but survived after he was resuscitated four times.

Heist, Part 1

For eight months during 2005 and 2006, a gang planned a bank heist targeting the Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent, a county in southeastern England.

They trolled the Internet for police badges and uniforms, and arranged for a make-up artist to design their disguises. Murray, for his part, appears to have conducted surveillance on the depot. In July 2005, he was issued a summons for loitering on a side street that has a clear view of the Securitas loading bay. The gang also had an inside man, hired at the depot two months before the raid, who used a tiny camera to get a look at the security system and told the others about manager Colin Dixon. On Feb. 21, 2006, they rolled out. Dixon, 52, saw fl ashing lights in his rear-view mirror as he drove home from the depot. The “policemen” told him he had been speeding. With guns drawn, they handcuffed him and shoved him in the back of their cruiser. They drove Dixon to a remote country house. Inside, they replaced Dixon’s glasses with a strip of tape, and they interrogated him about the depot’s security system. Back at Dixon’s home, his wife, Lynn, 47, started to worry. Her husband should have been home by now for dinner. There was a knock on the front door. Two police offi cers told her there had been a crash. Come with us, they said, we’ll take you to the hospital. Instead, Lynn and the Dixons’ nineyear- old son were taken to the country house at gunpoint. At the house, the crew loaded their victims into several vehicles – including a box truck – and headed for the depot.

Heist, Part 2

Night manager Tony Mason was counting money when seven masked intruders burst in to the depot, with a gun pointed at Dixon’s head. The shock of the group’s entrance froze the 14 depot employees. They were locked in cages used to store stacks of money, their wrists bound with cable ties. “Do as they say, they’ve got my wife and kid,” Dixon said to Mason. Mason was marched to a forklift, an AK-47 at his back, and was ordered to drive it to the vault. Realizing the robbers were on a time table, he began to stall, smashing the forklift into doors and pillars. When he later drove the loaded forklift to the truck, he saw Lynn and her son inside, their hands bound. Lynn thought she and her family would be killed. After all, they had gone with the robbers to the depot, and had seen their faces. Instead, she and her son were packed in with the rest of the employees, presumably to make room in the truck for the money. “Let’s rock and roll,” one gang member shouted when the truck was packed. The convoy drove off, their vehicles filled with more than 53 million pounds, or 92.5 million dollars.

Investigation And Arrests

It turned out that the perpetrators of the perfect crime had left some clues behind. Police found a reflector light from the box truck at the depot. They also discovered DNA on the cable ties. And they found the country house after Lynn remembered details she had seen though her loose-fitting blindfold. They made several arrests, but did not arrest Murray.

Scanning cell phone records, they hit on a conversation Murray had a month before the heist. The records MMA LIFE show that the conversation was with Lee Rusha, a man later convicted in the robbery. “I can’t show my face in there. Been on the newspapers and the fucking tele. Especially when I have my comeback fight,” Murray is quoted as saying. He surfaced in Rabat, Morocco’s capital, several months after the robbery. There, he paid one million pounds cash for a lavish villa in the city. One wall featured a life size mural to his one and only UFC victory.

In late June 2006, while being monitored at the request of the British government, Murray was arrested in Rabat by police for cocaine possession and resisting arrest. He has been in prison ever since. British prosecutors delivered a warrant for Murray’s extradition, but there was problem: Murray’s father is a Moroccan, making Murray one as well. By law, anyone who is Moroccan cannot be extradited. A Sky News broadcast showed a copy of what appeared to be Murray’s birth certificate, revealing his full name: Lee Brahim Lamrani Murray. The Moroccan Supreme Court convened to consider the extradition. British prosecutors sweetened the deal by purportedly offering to exchange suspected terrorist Mohamed Karbouzi, wanted for questioning by Moroccan authorities. On October 3, Karen Noble, a member of Kent Police’s Media Services, responded to an e-mail inquiry by writing, “We are unable to comment on Lee Murray, who, as you are aware, is still awaiting a decision at the Supreme Court in Morocco.”

Epilogue

In January 2008, fi ve men were found guilty after a seven- month trial. A second is underway for several additional robbers, among them, Paul “The Enforcer” Allen. According to The I ndependent , the prosecutor, Sir John Nutting, said Allen was “at the heart of the robbery,” and that “he played an important part throughout and assisted Lee Murray, who was arguably the leading light.”

A movie about Murray, based on the Sports Illustrated article “Breaking the Bank,” is now in the works, according to Variety’s website. Even without the movie, Murray’s legacy is solidifi ed among hard-core MMA fans, although possibly not for the reason he wanted. Miletich said Murray had the ability and drive to become a champion, adding that he didn’t know if Murray had indeed robbed the Securitas depot. One thing he does know: Whoever did rob that depot wanted to do it more than anything else. “You got to have a different level of commitment to do something like that,” Miletich said. “Everybody would love to have $100 million, but I think most people realize that they don’t want to sit in prison for the rest of their lives.”

]]>http://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/heist-440/feed/0The How-To Guys of MMA Victory Belthttp://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/the-how-to-guys-of-mma-victory-belt-436/
http://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/the-how-to-guys-of-mma-victory-belt-436/#commentsThu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000Kelly Criggerhttp://www.fightmagazine.comEveryone grows up eventually. After graduating college, Erich Krauss set out to live the life of a wandering writer in Spain, Morocco, Thailand, and South America while living on as little money as possible. But at thirty years old, Krauss found the vagabond lifestyle getting a bit tiring, and he decided to accomplish something with [...]

]]>Everyone grows up eventually. After graduating college, Erich Krauss set out to live the life of a wandering writer in Spain, Morocco, Thailand, and South America while living on as little money as possible. But at thirty years old, Krauss found the vagabond lifestyle getting a bit tiring, and he decided to accomplish something with his life. So, with an empty wallet and a laptop full of stories, he moved back to California and wrote several books while working as a Muay Thai coach at Ken Shamrock’s gym.

After publishing books on the Asian tsunami, the Mexican Border Patrol, and California wildfi res with different publishing companies in New York, Krauss co-authored Jiu-Jitsu Unleashed with Eddie Bravo, and got it published by McGraw Hill. But there was a problem: They didn’t know anything about MMA.

“They jacked it all up,” Krauss says. “They didn’t know how to edit it or market it, and then they tried to sell it as a striking book. Eddie Bravo has never thrown a kick in his life!” That experience lit a fi re under a guy who normally had an asbestos ass, and, along with his training partner, Glen Cordoza, he founded Victory Belt Publishing in 2005.

But a lifetime dedicated to adventuring instead of higher education left Krauss qualifi ed to host a show on Travel Channel, but not to run his own company. “We had to learn business real quick because we didn’t know much,” Krauss admits. Fortunately, his father was experienced at making money, and guided the pair though the steps of starting a small business. Before they knew it, the they hit a gold mine when BJ Penn agreed to let them publish his book, Mixed Martial Arts: The Book of Knowledge.

Today Victory Belt has sold over a million copies of its books, regularly outselling the major New York publishing houses. So if you’ve bought an instructional book on MMA in the last three years, there’s a good chance it was published by Krauss and Cordoza. The Las Vegas-based company has cranked out titles by notable fi ghters like Randy Couture, Anderson Silva, Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera, Fedor Emelianenko, and Karo Parisyan, among others. This makes them the unoffi cial “How-To Guys of MMA,” whose infl uence has reached all corners of the sport.

The average MMA tome takes between fi ve and twelve months from photo shoot to release, depending on how many projects the pair are juggling at the same time. Their fi rst book, Guerilla Jiu Jitsu with Dave Camarillo, took a mere fi ve months to shoot, write, design, and print, while a book by Matt Lindland has been languishing in the design phase for over a year because other projects keep jumping ahead of it in the line. A year is actually a relatively short time in the publishing world, especially when you consider the amount of information that’s embedded in each book and the impact it will have on its readers. Customers throw down their money because they want to learn how to fi ght, so a fi ghting system like Lindland’s, which took him years to develop, cannot be trivialized or rushed.

“We put everything we can into our books,” Krauss says. “All of our books are a complete system instead of just a bunch of moves lumped together. Glen [Cordoza] is a master at breaking down a fi ghting system and presenting it in a way that’s easy to understand, so it fl ows naturally.”

But just how much of an instructional book is written by the athlete versus the publishers? Fighters like Fedor Emelianenko and Anderson Silva are celebrities with busy schedules, and when you add in a language barrier, the challenges of writing a four-hundred page book are clear. With Victory Belt, the ratio is about 50-50. “The athlete has the system and the philosophy,” says Krauss. “We get as much information as we can out of them at the photo shoot and then get more as we write the book, but we put in the little things. You don’t need Fedor to say, ‘I put my right foot here when I throw a cross.’ We know that so we put those little details in.”

That approach has made Victory Belt one of the best-selling publishers in the business today. But with so many titles, there’s a risk of saturating the market so heavily with MMA books that they might go straight to the bargain bin. Fortunately, Victory Belt doesn’t publish just anyone’s book. Randy Couture’s Wrestling for Fighting is a completely different system from Karo Parisyan’s Judo for MMA, and Marcello Garcia’s X Guard isn’t the same as Eddie Bravo’s Rubber Guard.

Krauss and Cordoza don’t just take on a project because there’s a popular name associated with it. There has to be a compelling reason to spend a year preparing a book about a fi ghting system—and a market to sell it in. “We only publish books by people who have something to offer,” adds Cordoza. “Kimbo Slice might be a marketable guy and a recognizable name, but he doesn’t have a fi ghting system that people will want to learn. He’s still developing his skills, so we wouldn’t publish a book by him.”

What they will publish are eight more books; one by BJ Penn on gi-style grappling, as well as titles by Lyoto Machida, Cung Le, Greg Jackson, and another book by Anderson Silva in 2009. It’s not exactly what Krauss set out to do when he hit the road so many years ago, but if Victory Belt continues to be successful, his tales of hang gliding in Guatemala and running with the bulls in Spain will make their way to the bookshelves too.

When you travel far and wide to capture the fi ghting styles of the best in MMA, it’s easy to gather some stories of tomfoolery along the way. Here are some of Krauss and Cordoza’s favorite moments:

1. Punking Eddie Bravo – “We were videotaping one of Eddie Bravo’s DVDs and decided to mess with him a little, so we had this big Samoan dude come into the gym and hit on a girl Eddie was interested in. Eddie kept looking at this guy and fi nally walked over, got in his face, and started yelling at him to leave the gym or they were going to fi ght. The funny thing was the girl kept instigating it. She was saying, ‘Kick his ass Eddie!’ and all these other things to stir the pot. When it was fi nally over Eddie admitted he was scared to confront the dude, but had to for this girl. The things we do for hot chicks.”

2. The Missing Day –“We had to fl y to Russia to photograph Fedor for his book. Well, I don’t really like fl ying, so Glen gave me two Zanax and I was out cold. I was so out of it that, when we were changing fl ights in New York, they had to carry me from one plane to the other. And when they propped me up against a wall some kids started looting my pockets. When I fi nally came to, we were in Russia…25 hours later!”

3. Anderson Silva’s Impersonations – “There isn’t much to this, but it was so funny at the time. We were photographing Anderson Silva for his striking book and during one of the breaks he suddenly goes into a deadon impersonation of Royce Gracie’s fi ghting style. Then he broke out Randy Couture, Bruce Lee, and Chuck Liddell imitations that had the whole gym rolling.”

4. Sleeping on Couture – “We had to drive from Chico to Randy Couture’s Legends gym in L.A., and like always, we’d stayed up all night working beforehand. So we drive the nine hours down there and go straight into the photo shoot just as tired as hell. Well, Glen got into the clinch with Couture, and suddenly I had to adjust some of the camera equipment, which took a minute or so. When we were ready to shoot, Glen was asleep on Couture’s shoulder…standing up! Randy had to wake him up to do the photos, but he was totally cool about it.”

5. Tempers Flare in Albuquerque – “We were shooting Greg Jackson’s fi rst book, and one of the co-authors was this Army guy who was pretty intense. He had a video recorder going, so whenever Greg talked he could capture it. Well, I forgot he had it on and kept saying, ‘write this down,’ or ‘did you get that?’ every time Greg spoke. I didn’t know it was starting to wear on him, so I did it one more time and he blew up. He was yelling, ‘Yes I got it, mother f**ker. What do you think I am, a f**king idiot? I’m a damn Army offi cer with a Masters degree and you’re poking at me like a f**king kindergartner with crayons!’ He was joking a little bit, but only a little.”

]]>http://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/the-how-to-guys-of-mma-victory-belt-436/feed/03 To Shine In ’09http://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/3-to-shine-in-09-434/
http://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/3-to-shine-in-09-434/#commentsThu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000Jim Caseyhttp://www.fightmagazine.comThe year 2008 was great, but 2009 will be fi ne … especially fi ne for three fi ghters who will have the opportunity to wrap some new bling around their waists. It wouldn’t surprise too many folks if Urijah Faber or Rampage Jackson reclaimed their title belts this year. That’s too easy to predict. [...]

]]>The year 2008 was great, but 2009 will be fi ne … especially fi ne for three fi ghters who will have the opportunity to wrap some new bling around their waists. It wouldn’t surprise too many folks if Urijah Faber or Rampage Jackson reclaimed their title belts this year. That’s too easy to predict. It’s like saying Rashad Evans will tweak his nipples during his fi rst title defense. I like those odds. But which fi ghters have the opportunity to turn some heads this year and upset the balance of MMA nature? Here are three who have the brass to get the gold. Remember it, write it down, and take a picture: You heard it here fi rst.

1) Joachim Hansen 5’ 9”, 155 pounds, DREAM Record: 19–7

Here’s the sad thing: More so-called MMA fans know who Junie Browning is than who Joachim Hansen is. Unfortunately, it isn’t enough to be a stud in the cage anymore; you have to be willing to drink urine to get some notoriety these days.

Hansen, along with Eddie Alvarez and Shinya Aoki, constitute a trio of world-class Lightweight fi ghters not in the UFC. Therefore, a lot of fans have no idea who they are. But they are awesome in every way. Although Hansen has some gold as the current DREAM Lightweight champion, look for him to give newly crowned WAMMA Lightweight champion Aoki a good, old-fashioned Norwegian beating. Alvarez, Aoki, and Hansen are the three best Lightweights in the world not named Penn. Watching them duke it out for the WAMMA title is going to be entertaining.

2) Dan Henderson 5’ 11”, 185 pounds, UFC Record: 23–7

Henderson is the only man in the last few years to make Anderson Silva look fallible — albeit for just only one round in their 2008 fi ght. Given another opportunity at the UFC Middleweight championship, Henderson could wreak havoc on Silva with a disciplined game plan of dirty boxing, takedowns, and ground-n-pound.

Throughout his 12-year career, Henderson has fought the best competition in the world, including both Nogueiras, Rampage Jackson, Wanderlei Silva, Babalu, Renzo Gracie, Shogun, and Rich Franklin. Now, the former PRIDE Middleweight and Light-heavyweight champion is thirsty for his fi rst piece of UFC gold, and he has the tools to get it. Look for Hendo to dispose of Michael Bisping on his way to a title shot, and don’t act surprised to see Dan do a little Brazilian Samba after he beats the Spider.

3) Brian Bowles 5’ 7”, 135 pounds, WEC Record: 7–0

Bowles is a mini-wrecking ball. Of his seven professional fi ghts, none have gone the distance, and that includes four WEC wins over Charlie Valencia, Marcos Galvao, Damacio Page, and Will Ribeiro. WEC Bantamweight champion Miguel Torres could be the next name on that list.

Bowles may be giving up a sizeable reach advantage to Torres, but expect Bowles’ training camp at The Hard- Core Gym in Athens, Ga, to come up with a fi ght plan to negate the lanky champion. Torres and Bowles are two of the most well-rounded — and toughest — mixed martial artists in the game today. Neither fi ghter has shown any signs of weakness. Look for this fi ght to be one of the best of the year, and look for Bowles to wear the belt at its conclusion as he ekes out a splitdecision victory.